Category Archives: Pacific Spirit Park

FieldNotes: for the Anthropology of British Columbia � Metro Vancouver Challenging Musqueam Land Deal

Today it’s Queen E. Annex, tomorrow maybe your favourite park

An interesting reference to selling ‘public’ land to “appease third party interests” was part of the closing lines in a Queen Elizabeth Annex parent’s letter to the Courier the other day. The linking of the school closure to selling off public lands, including “your favourite park,” raises some interesting questions. It is very likely that the letter writers did not mean to explicitly identify the Musqueam Reconciliation Agreement, but the similarity in the language with the fight against the agreement by park and golf course supporters shows a familiarity with the issues and implies a moral linking of these issues -selling the school and losing the park as being clearly on the ‘bad side of the equation. At the very least the letter points to one community’s sense of connection and feeling of being under attack and their capacity to mobilize and connect. First they lose ‘their’ park, now they are losing ‘their’ school.

Speakers at the Friends of Pacific Spirit Park rally on December 9th, 2007, spoke against the ‘transfer’ of a ‘public asset’ to ‘settle a provincial’ debt and to ‘save’ the UBC Golf Course. While the speakers at the rally may not feel or think that they were rallying against the Musqueam Reconciliation Agreement, any First Nations person or any person who has worked with First Nations for any length of time would find it hard to see the fine distinction that the speakers may well think they were making. First Nations communities constantly face non-aboriginal communities who will say “We support legitimate land claims” and then say that the specific item –be it fisheries, forestry, energy, water, or parkland- trumps the ‘particular’ interest of the First Nations because the non-aboriginal claim is in the ‘interest of all of us.’ For over 30 years I have had opportunities to witness many different non-aboriginal groups rally the same arguments in their opposition to resolving land claims and affirming aboriginal title and rights. The current provincial government even entered office opposing many specific aspects of reconciliation but has found, as they matured in office, that their populist opposition to aboriginal title and rights is not supported in law. So, short of a revolution, reconciliation agreements, such as the one entered into with Musqueam, will be the order of the day –whatever the stripe of the government.